Trip to Indiana Recap

Hi Everyone!!

We recently got to spend several days in Indiana with family and it was a GREAT trip!

We spent the first couple of days in the South Bend / Mishawaka area with Eric, Lisa and Ian. It was such a blessing to be able to spend time with them in their house and get to spend some quality time getting to know Ian! While there we were able to tour the Bethel College campus and attend one of their chapel services, go to the College Football Hall of Fame and take Ian to Build-A-Bear to help make one of his Christmas presents! We also got to experience Lisa's amazing cooking! We read their blog often and hear about her recipes and love for cooking, but being able to experience it first hand was just awesome! They are a great family and we loved the time that we were able to spend with them!

We then spent the remainder of our trip in Fort Wayne with Sherri's parents. We packed a lot of activities into a short period but we had a blast! I got to experience my first taste of Indiana High School Basketball and what a game it was! Southside won with a last minute shot and the atmosphere was just electric! The stereotypes of Indiana and basketball are true!

On Saturday we had the big Amstutz Family Christmas and I think we had around 40 people come through the house that day. It was really great to get to see family and spend time with them, especially around the holidays! Both Sherri and I wish that we had more one-on-one time with everyone, but we feel like we got to connect with everyone pretty well! That evening we had a smaller Christmas with the immediate family and we finished the day up with a delicious dinner of Alaskan Crab and Shrimp Scampi! It was a great ending to a great day!

On Sunday we got up early and drove into Indianapolis for a Colts game! We got to see history made as the win gave them the most consecutive regular season wins, as well as becoming the winning-est team in any decade. Pretty Awesome! After the game we were able to go on the field and hear a few speakers, but honestly, I was more focused on being on the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium than I was with anything they were saying, it was just a great experience all around and a memory that we are super glad we got to share with family!

Monday was our last full day there so it was spent with some last minute shopping and packing.

We headed for Chicago on Tuesday, along the way we stopped in Warsaw and got to spend a few minutes with a friend who now works for Grace College, it was cool to connect with a fellow Alaskan in the heart of Hoosier country! We forgot about the time difference between Chicago and Indiana so we got to Chicago earlier than we expected, we filled the time with a trip to Wrigley Field and then we wrapped up our trip with a quick visit with my brother! He happened to be in Chicago for business that day and it worked out perfectly that we got to see him!

Our trip was not as long as we would have liked it to be, but we are so thankful that we got to see as many people as we did and we really did have a great time! On the trip back home we both agreed that this was probably our best trip yet to Indiana! Being able to spend time with Ian and finally meet Kaylyn were certainly highlights of our trip! We are certainly a proud Aunt & Uncle!

Christmas Blog - 2009

Hello Friends & Family -

My, how fast time flies! Can you believe that 2010 is only a few short weeks away?

2009 has been a GREAT year for Sherri and I, and we wanted to give you a quick re-cap of it, as well as a peek into the year ahead.

A Look Back

• One of the main highlights of this year for us was our trip to Ireland in March. We were able to spend 10 days there over St. Patrick's Day exploring the Southern part of the country. It was an amazing trip that went far beyond our expectations! We took over 500 photos, met some amazing people, saw breathtaking sites, almost died dozens of times as I attempted to learn how to drive on the other side of the road and came back with a deep desire to go back to Ireland.

• Work continues to go well for me. Despite a slow tourist season here in Alaska, my hotels still performed very well and are always among the largest revenue producers in the country! In November I celebrated my 3rd Anniversary with Extended Stay. This year was also the first time since we got married that I haven't traveled for work! Due to the economy my company put a travel freeze in place so I only had 1 work trip this year! In the previous years I traveled 20 plus times per year, so being able to be home has been wonderful!

• Sherri still enjoys her job greatly. She loves where she works and the people that she works with and that makes all the difference! In October she celebrated her 2 year anniversary with TecPro! She feels fortunate to work for a company where she feels valued and appreciated. It has been a place where she has been able to use her talents and giftings and also learn new skills.

• In September we started working with the 4-year-olds at our church during one of the Sunday morning services, and we are loving it! The kids are just amazing and we look forward to every week that we are with them!

• We have now been in our house for over a year and a half and it really feels like "us". This year we changed out all of the closet doors and we are planning on putting in hard wood floors in the kitchen and dining room and adding a dry storage area below our stairs. These will probably be winter projects.
  

• We had an amazing weather year! Our summer was filled with, what seemed like, non-stop blue skies and perfect days! We were able to get out camping several times and really enjoy the Alaskan wilderness.

• Tomorrow morning we are leaving to visit family in Indiana from December 7 - 15. We are looking forward to seeing everyone. We have a busy trip planned but it should be a lot of fun! We will get to celebrate Christmas early with everyone there and we are really looking forward to that!

A Look Ahead

• I will be in Dallas for a week in early January for work (here comes the travel again)
• In April I turn 30! What kind of senior discounts do I qualify for at 30?
  
• Sherri and I are still discussing possible 2010 vacation destinations.
  
• In June we are going to Seattle to see U2 in concert! During that trip we are trying to plan for several days in the Oregon / Idaho area so that Sherri can meet much of my family that lives around there! Details to follow!
  
• We will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary in September!

We hope that 2009 has been a great year for you! Feel free to check this page often as we try and keep it updated on a regular basis. Also, e would love to hear from you so leave us a comment on this page or send us an e-mail to adamandsherri@gmail.com and let us know how you are! We are so thankful for the strong support system of friends and family that we have, life is sweeter because of all of you!

Many blessings in 2010!

Here are some photos from 2009:

View from the hot tub during one of our "getaways"


Summer sunset, 11:30pm!

Dunguire Castle in Ireland


Celtic Cross in Cashel, Ireland


3 Moose on our lawn!


View on our hike back from Byron Glacier


Denali (Mt. McKinley) on a Fall day

Scarves

Sherri and I are big believers that true Faith is more what you do, than what you say. We enjoy looking for ways to put our faith into action and this year we had a great idea.

Can you imagine a worse place to be homeless than Alaska? Being homeless is never easy but when you add to that our long, cold winters, it just seems extra tough. Winters can be hard on us and we have a thermostat that controls our heat with the push of a button. Trying to imagine living outside in the cold just seems miserable.

So, we decided that anything warm that we could give would probably be much appreciated. On Black Friday we found a great sale on fleece at Joanne's Fabric. We were able to buy $150 worth of fleece for $50! We spent the last few evenings measuring, cutting and tying 55 scarves to hand out to the homeless here in Anchorage! So for less than $1.00 per scarf we were able to provide something that hopefully makes them a little warmer and let's them know that they matter, because everyone needs that, especially at Christmas, right?

Winter is here!

Hello Everyone!

Well, after an AMAZING summer and a much longer than usual Fall, winter has arrived in Alaska! We have had our first snow, the temperatures are colder and the days are shorter. However, with winter comes the holiday season! The house is currently decorated for Thanksgiving and we have lights up outside already. We will start decorating for Christmas soon, and I can't wait! This year we are continuing our "Black Friday" tradition of staying up all night with friends and getting in line for shopping at 3am! Many of the black friday ad's have already been released on-line and we are already planning our attack! Here are some of the things that we have been up to:

• Filled our "Operation Christmas Child" shoe boxes last night for Samaritans Purse. This is something that we do every year and always enjoy!
• Last Friday (the 13th) I celebrated my 3rd year anniversary with Extended Stay Hotels!
• We bought tickets to go to U2 in Seattle next June!!
• Have decided that a Blu-Ray player is on our "black friday" list this year.
• Sherri has been busy painting Thanksgiving / Christmas crafts, and then look awesome!
  

Sherri's Company on the News!

Here is a local news story from this week that involves the company that Sherri works for!

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11411984

You can just read the text of the story or you can actually watch the video of the story on that page ( I recommend the video)

Good job TecPro!!

It's almost November already?!?

Hello Internet Friends and Family!!

We hope that you are having a great Fall and that October has treated you well!!

We are doing great! Our house is all decorated for the season, we have our pumpkins carved and our Halloween costumes all picked out (pictures to be posted later).

Sherri has been doing well, she battled a cold last week but he is feeling better now! Work is going good for her and she is still really enjoying her job! We recently came across some papers of companies that she sent applications in to when she was looking for a job last time, and just looking over them made us SO much more thankful that she ended up where she did. Work can be a little slow for her at times but being with a company where she feels respected and is often encouraged and praised by the people around her makes all of the difference.

Work for me is going good as well, we actually had a strong summer season despite a drop in tourism thanks to the national economy. Our hotels stayed mostly full and I am very thankful that we didn't see the decline that many hotels did. Lately I have been busy volunteering time at ChangePoint, our church, heading up our Social Networking ventures. This includes Facebook, Twitter and an amazing new program that we are still beta-testing that allows people to access virtual bulletins via iPhone, Blackberry or computer from anywhere. It is pretty awesome to be able to have all of the sermon slides, verses, notes and calendar info right there with you. We recently launched a new Facebook page for the church and after less than a week we have over 400 "fans" and we have a campaign in place to get to 1,000 (look at the fun new gadget here on the right side of our blog that follows along with the Facebook page)!! I really enjoy social networking and social media so this has been a perfect fit for me!!

We are still enjoying working with the 4 year old's at church, each week that we serve we have so much fun and really learn to love how trusting and honest they are at that age.

We booked our trip to Indiana in December and we are both looking forward to it! We will be there from December 7 - 15!! We are looking forward to seeing as many people as we can and enjoying time with family!

This weekend we are doing our annual Halloween Party with our friends. The theme each year is "things that go together", so you could be a famous couple, or a pair. In years past we went as a plug and an outlet and Gilligan and the skipper. We can't reveal our costumes, however we think that this will be our best one yet. We will post pictures after the party!!

We still don't have any snow! Watching the news reports of snow in places like Minnesota, Denver and the East Coast has left me feeling a little bit left out!! There was a chance of snow last night, but it never happened, SO, it appears that we may be into November before we get our first snow because they are forecasting several days of clearing and sunshine now.

That's all for now, we hope that you have a great Halloween and enjoy what is left of the Fall season!!

Moose in our back yard!!

Today we had 3 moose in our back yard and I got a short video of them that I thought you would enjoy!! Ahh, life in Alaska!

4 Years Already?!?!?

I know that this post is a couple of weeks late, but better late then never, right?

So late last month we celebrated our 4th wedding Anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has already been 4 years! The time has flown by. Our anniversary celebration kind of stretched over several days, so here is what we did.

On our actual anniversary we made a great dinner at home. It included filet's, Alaskan King Crab, fingerling potatoes with onions and an awesome anniversary cake that Sherri made.

Here is a photo of the King Crab for dinner.


For anniversary gifts this year we decided that since we already have a lot of "stuff" and that we really feel fortunate that we have good paying jobs that we love and have been blessed financially, that instead of just buying things and adding to our ever growing collection of stuff, we wanted to find a creative way to leverage the resources that we would have spent on gifts for ourselves, and give that away to someone who needed it. So, we had the idea, that since the traditional 4th anniversary gifts are fruit and flowers, that we would go onto Kiva.org, a micro-finance website that we use and love, and see if we could find someone around the world who was trying to start a business that related to fruit or flowers that we could assist and give the money to them. Well, we found the perfect people to donate to! One of them is a single mother of 5 in Peru who runs a fruit stand in her village and the other group is from Uganda and they grow and sell fruit to several merchants around their area. It worked out awesome! The feeling that we got and the memory that we made giving rather than hoarding is such a powerful thing. It truly is better to give than to receive.

The weekend after our anniversary we found an amazing deal at the Marriott downtown and we stayed there for 2 nights. It worked out perfect because we actually had a concert and wine tasting downtown Friday night and then Saturday night we had dinner downtown and then went and saw The Lion King. Staying downtown let us be close to our activities and it gave us a great couple days "away" and we were able to read, relax and just enjoy being together.

A quick Lion King review. It is amazing. If it is ever near you, GO SEE IT!! We have been fortunate to see quite a few shows over the past few years and we both agree that this was the most amazing production that we have ever seen, BY FAR!!

Update: Our first week with the 4 year olds.

As we posted a few weeks ago, we have now started working with the 4 year old class at our church every other Sunday at the 9:30am service. We had out first week with them 2 weekends ago and will be with them again this weekend.

Our first weekend was a huge success! We had SO much fun and really enjoyed our time with them and we are looking forward to each week!

ChangePoint has really done an amazing job creating a world-class children's space and it is evident in the way that the kids are so excited to be there.

We work our way through 3 different rooms and spend under 30 minutes in each, so the kids are never in one space long enough to get bored. We start out in the Prospector Mine Room that is filled with toys and crafts and lots of different play areas and basically we just hang out with the kids there and play with them and get to know them. When we are about 5 minutes from leaving the room a song comes on that is the "pick up song" and it was AMAZING to see that as soon as the song came on, with no prompting from any of the adults, all of the kids got up and started picking up and putting away all of the toys. It was like Pavlov's dog, I was very impressed that they all just knew that the song meant to clean up because we were about to leave. After that room we go to the Under The Sea room where there is music and a short lesson that, surprisingly, the kids were completely focused on. I learned that one of the main reasons that the kids are so focused in that room has to do with the lighting. When you walk in the room is dark but the stage is totally lit and has a very fun look. The dark room causes the kids to turn their focus on the stage and what is happening there, pretty awesome. After that room we end our time in King Cove, which is a giant indoor play area that features slides, reading areas, movie areas, lot of things to climb on and play in and the kids just go crazy and love it!!

As someone who has never served in children's ministry before I didn't know what to expect and I was very pleasantly surprised. It was so much fun and the kids really seem to enjoy their time there, and that is the whole point!

Who knew that 4 year olds were so awesome?!

Winter is on the way

Every year, around this time, there is that one day when you wake up, look outside and are confronted by reality. Winter is on its way. We are still, probably, a few weeks away from our first snow here in town, but it is certainly fast approaching.

As a BIG fan of winter, I personally can't wait for the snow to get here!!

(Mountains from our living room - last week)

(First snowfall on the mountains - yesterday)

A long overdue update

Hi Everyone!!

It has been a few weeks since our last update and we have done A LOT, so this may be along blog.

Here is what we have been up to.

A few weeks ago we went and hiked to Byron Glacier with some friends. It was a beautiful, sunny 70 degree day and e just had to be outside. The hike to the glacier is pretty easy but it is beautiful once you get there! The glacier comes down from the surrounding mountains and a river flows right through it creating this awesome blue ice cave! Here are some photos from that trip.

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We also went to Homer for a weekend with some friends. Homer is an amazing little town located about a 4 1/2 hour drive from Anchorage. It is located right on the water and is surrounded by mountains and glaciers. It is one of Alaska's best "coastal" towns for sure. We stayed in a great little vacation home, the Little Fireweed Cottage, that had all the comforts of home. It also had a hot tub on the deck that overlooked the water and mountains, it was simply perfect.

On Saturday the guys went out fishing. I caught a small shark and we also caught 1 Halibut and 1 Irish Lord. The fishing was actually really bad, normally everyone gets their limit of Halibut (2 per person per day), plus several other fish, but the weather that morning was terrible for fishing. Sherri stayed at the cottage while we were out fishing and enjoyed what she called a "perfect day", she watched 4 movies, relaxed and did a bunch of painting all while enjoying the view and the comforts of the cottage. That night we all went out for dinner at an AMAZING seafood restaurant, some of the best seafood that I have ever had! Sherri even tried her very first oyster on the 1/2 shell!! Our last day there we went to the Bear Creek Winery. What a hidden gem this place is! It is a small family run winery but they produce some amazing wines! Most of their wines are a grape / berry mix, for example they have a BlueZin that is wild Alaskan blueberries blended with a White Zinfandel or their Shirazzberry which is a Syrah blended with Alaskan Raspberries. We sampled a dozen or so wines, had some great finger foods there and left with 3 bottles of wine!

It was a great, relaxing trip and it really felt like a "mini-vacation".

Here are some photos from the trip!

(The small shark I caught)

(View from the hot tub)

(Homer Small Boat Harbor)

(The Tasting Room at Bear Creek Winery)

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I had a work trip to Fairbanks last week and on my drive home the weather was perfect! Many of the mountain passes that I drove through had already started to turn the fall colors. There is a type of plant that grows on mountains in Interior Alaska that during fall turns the entire mountainside a bright red and it is just beautiful! Also, Denali (Mt. McKinley) was totally out! The mountain is 20,320 feet tall and because of how huge it is it often creates its own weather systems and is normally hidden with clouds, but when it is out, it dominates the horizon, especially in interior Alaska where I was.

Here are a few photos from the drive.

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And FINALLY...this weekend we went to the Alaska State Fair with Jason and Jana. It was another beautiful sunny day (very rare during the state fair), we ate some awesome fair food, played some games and just had a great time!! One of the highlights of the fair are the GIANT vegetables that are grown here in Alaska. Every year world records are broken and this year was no exception. There were 2 new world records set, there was a 127 pound cabbage and an 82.9 pound rutabaga. Some other notable veggies included a 17 pound radish, a 133 pound watermelon, a 12 pound puffball mushroom and a 329 pound pumpkin.

Here is a photo of the new world record cabbage.

Children can smell fear...and when they do...they attack!!

We have decided to take a BIG step in our "church service life". We are partnering up with Jason and Jana, our great friends, and we are taking over running the 4 year old class at the 9:30am Sunday service at our church! We will be serving every other week, and actually, we are really excited about it! Our church has a pretty large Children's Ministry, about 1,000 kids every week, and they need LOTS of volunteers to care for all of those kids, SO we decided to go "all in" and help out.

There is a promo video posted above for AdventureLand, where we will be serving, check it out!

The Best Group of Friends

Left to Right
Back Row: Lydia, Jake, Sherri, Adam
Front Row: Jason, Jana, Malinda, JohnDale

We have an AMAZING group of friends and this past weekend was one of our their birthdays. He is from Colorado and his wife is from Oklahoma and they are pretty country and very awesome! For his Birthday party we decided to go "western". We all dressed up, went out for steaks and went to listen to a country band at a local bar. It was SUCH a fun evening! These are people that we "do life with" each and every week and we feel so blessed to have such great people so involved in our lives!

Living Green

Hello Everyone!

Our belief that we are supposed to be a good steward of everything we have been given, including creation, has lead us to put in place some practices in our daily lives that help us live a greener, less consuming lifestyle. There are a TON of websites that give tips on living green and here are just a few of the things that we have been doing!

PAPER TOWELS: We were BIG Kleenex Viva Paper Towel fans. We were using about 1 roll a week. We used them for everything! Viva's are one of the more expensive and least Eco-friendly paper towels on the market so we decided to "try" living without our beloved Vivas. My mom had a ton of cloth napkins so we went and got a dozen matching napkins from her and we also got a bunch of dish cloths that we could use for spills and general kitchen cleaning/wiping up. We knew that if these items weren't accessible that we wouldn't use them so we found a great little 2 drawer counter unit that now holds our cloth napkins and dish cloths. We made the switch 2 months ago and we have now cut our paper towel usage down to 1 roll every 6 weeks, which means that in 1 year we will use about 45 less rolls of paper towels and it saves us around $150.00 per year. Also, we just toss the cloth napkins and dish rags in with our regular laundry, so it doesn't increase our laundry at all. Win for us, Win for the environment.

Here is a picture of what we keep our napkins and dish rags in on our kitchen counter.

OUR HOME: The State of Alaska has a "Home Energy Rebate" program that is designed to refund homeowners a portion of what they spend making their homes more energy efficient. The way it works is that an energy rater comes out and does tests in your house to determine the current energy rating, then they give you a list of things you can do to increase the energy efficiency of your home. Based on the progress you make you qualify for a certain refund amount. We had our energy rating a few months ago and learned that we can increase our house to a 4 Star Energy Rating, and with that we will get a $4,500 refund on the work that we do. Also, we will decrease the carbon footprint of our house by about 1/3

One of our biggest issues is that our home isn't very air tight, which in the cold Alaskan winters is not a good thing, so, here are the steps that we are going to be taking over the next few months to make our home more energy efficient:

• Foam Outlet Inserts. These go under the switch plates of all outlets and switches and help stop the draft that normally comes through.
  
• Eliminating Recessed Lighting: We have 3 recessed lighting cans upstairs and they are where we lose most of our heat in the winter so we are sealing them up and putting in pendant lights.
• New Weather Stripping on all windows and doors: All of our windows and doors are pretty old, as is the weather stripping so we are replacing all weather stripping.
• New Sliding Glass Doors upstairs and downstairs: This is the change that we are most excited about. Both of our sliding glass doors are old and don't seal very well so we are having new doors put in.
• Weather Sealing: We are going to re-seal everything that vents to the outside, so our range hood, fireplace and dryer.

These few fairly simple steps will help our house become more energy efficient, save us money in the long run, get us a $4,500 energy rebate from the State of Alaska and will help increase the value of our home!

Here is a picture of the foam inserts for the outlets. We got these free from our local electric company!


LIGHT BULBS: This is one of the easiest first-steps that anyone can make. We have changed all of our light bulbs to the compact fluorescent bulbs. These bulbs do cost a little more but they use SO much less energy and they last MUCH longer.

SHOPPING BAGS: We have a set of re-usable shopping bags that we keep in each vehicle and we use them for grocery shopping, yard sale-ing, camping, book sales, etc... They hold more items then a normal shopping bag and we like using them much more. When we forget the reusable bags and have to use the plastic store bags we just hold on to them and take them to a local thrift store where they can always re-use plastic shopping bags.

NEWSPAPER: I am a huge news junkie and I couldn't imagine living without my news, however, I realized that receiving the paper every day was a bit much when I get most of my news from the Internet already. We cut our newspaper subscription down to only Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so we still get the weekend sale ad's and coupons, and we save 4 days of paper and we our subscription is cheaper!

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These are some of the things that we have been doing. Anything that you have been doing to try and live a greener life? Any good "green living" ideas? If so, leave us a comment!!

Great Message...

This past weekend at ChangePoint we started a new series called: "Stop. Breathe. Listen." and it deals with our need as humans to not constantly go, go, go. In a world that seems over-busy all of the time we rarely take time to rest. We have become a society that is so focused on success and schedules that we have forgotten to live balanced lives.

This is a 6 week series that will focus on topics such as Sabbath, Meditation, Fasting, Confession, Silence, Simplicity and Solitude.

The message this past weekend was on Sabbath and it was the best teaching on this topic that I have ever heard and it really challenged Sherri and I as to how we spend our time, especially regarding a Sabbath day. We were both challenged that we have not really had a correct understanding as to what a Sabbath really should be.

You can listen to the message by clicking here. It is the message from August 1st/2nd.

Hopefully we can all remember to get off of the highway of life and enjoy a back road every now and then.

Enjoy.

Our 150th Post!!!

On July 20th, 2006, 3 years and 3 days ago, we posted our first blog on this site. It is hard to believe but this will be our 150th blog posting! We created this blog to help keep our family and friends updated on the happenings of our life and I hope that we have done a good job at that! We have averaged, just under, a blog a week since we started.

Let us know if there is anything that you would like to see more of. I will continue to try and get Sherri to blog more, she says "good luck with that" haha.

We really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read our blog and stay updated with us and always feel free to leave us comments or send us e-mails, we love hearing from you!

Hopefully the next 150 posting will be even more entertaining!

- Adam & Sherri

Possibly the coolest couple ever.

I think that this is the most entertaining wedding entrance dance that I have ever seen. Kudos to them!!!

How is it July already?!

Hello!!

We hope that you all had a VERY happy Independence Day and were able to enjoy the long weekend!

We had a great weekend! It was beautiful here with temperatures in the upper 70's and lower 80's. The 80's are a rare treat here in Anchorage.

Here is a quick re-cap of what we have been up to:

On July 2nd we went and saw The Wailers in concert. They were Bob Marley's band and they were really good!! It was great to hear such classic songs buy the band that made them famous! It was a beautiful sunny evening and being outside listening to reggae music just felt perfect!

For the 4th we went to the parade downtown and then got together with friends for a BBQ and games all day and into the night!! It is still light here almost all night so fireworks are shot off but they aren't that big of a deal. Most of our big fireworks shows are in the winter months because of the dark/light issue.

On Sunday the 5th we slept in (11am!!!) and then got up and made a picnic and took our basket, camping chairs and books to Jewel Lake and sat outside for 3 hours just enjoying the sun. It was such a great time. There were a lot of families there, kids swimming in the lake and we even saw an Eagle come in and land in a tree about 100 feet from us! It was VERY cool! Sherri and I didn't swim but we did wade out in the water a bit, which felt good on such a warm day. We both got a little sunburned though.

That's all for now!

Happy Solstice!!

Hello Readers!!

Summer Solstice is a BIG deal in Alaska. I bet there were at least 10 large festivals / events here in Anchorage yesterday along with a marathon that draws running clubs from around the country. For Sherri and I, it has become a yearly tradition that we stay up almost all night with friends to watch the sunset (11:45pm) and then the sunrise a couple of hours later. It really is amazing to see the sun barely dip below the horizon.

It never gets totally dark here right now, the darkest it gets is more of a "dusk".

Next summer we are hoping to go to Fairbanks for Summer Solstice. They have a baseball game that has been named one of the top 10 "must see" games in all of baseball. The game starts at 10:30pm and ends around 1:30am and they play the entire game using no stadium lights. It is a game that draws baseball fans from around the country and we have never been, so I think next year it is time that we go!!

Here are some photos from last night!!

(Sunset, around 11:30PM)

(Sky getting lighter for sunrise, 2am.
This is about as dark as it gets right now.)

Looking to start over?? Pack Your Bags!!!!!

Here is a great article that came out today that a friend linked to on Facebook and I wanted to post.

Click here for the article.

YES!! We're #1!! And, I could not agree more with this article! What a great place to live and the opportunities here are amazing!

We recently had some friends stay with us who are considering relocating to Anchorage and they asked a very interesting question at dinner one night, a question I don't think I have ever been asked. They asked us:

we see a lot of great things about Anchorage, but what do you NOT like about living here?

It honestly took us a minute of thinking and the ONLY thing we could come up with is that it is far away from family. It is certainly more difficult to feel "involved" in life from such a distance, but that was the only thing we could think of that we didn't like. I would say that is pretty good!

So pack your bags, you can even stay with us while you are looking for houses!

See you soon "neighbors"!

Nancy Lake

This weekend we went and stayed two nights at one of the Public Use Cabins on Nancy Lake, about a 90 minute drive North of Anchorage, with our friends Jason and Jana.

The State of Alaska has built a lot of these cabins all over the state that are for the recreational use of residents and visitors. Some are accessible by car, but a lot of them are only accessible by boat, plane or hiking trail. The cabins are pretty basic with a wood stove, picnic table, counter space and a few wooden sleeping platforms. But they are perfect for quick and cheap getaways! The cabin we stayed at is one of four that are located on Nancy Lake. The cabin is about a 1 mile hike from the parking lot, but it is a pretty well defined trail, so it isn't very hard.

These cabins are a great benefit and I am very glad that the State of Alaska built them because it really encourages people to get out and enjoy their state. They are a big step up from a tent and give you a great shelter that lets you enjoy being "outside" no matter what the weather does.

This weekend we played Yahtzee and Dutch Blitz, talked a lot, drove into Talkeetna and enjoyed a Saturday in the town, killed a million mosquitoes, I even took a quick, but cold, dip in the lake and Sherri took a quick, but painful tumble down a hill (she is fine).

It was a great weekend, we were able to enjoy a great cabin, a beautiful lake and excellent company!

(Our packs all ready to go! Sherri's is the one with the purse strapped to the outside, imagine that. You should see her with her pack on, she is 5'1 and her pack is probably 3'0, kinda funny)

(View from the waters edge, right outside our cabin)

(Inside the cabin)

Mini Getaway

For my birthday some friends gave us a gift card to Alyeska Resort. It is located in Girdwood, about 45 minutes from Anchorage and is a world class ski resort in the winter and a mountain biking / hiking destination in the summer. At the resort they have a great 4 star hotel that we stayed at last Friday night. The hotel is really nice and the area around the hotel is just so beautiful. We hung out in our room, watched a movie and enjoyed an amazing dessert called a "Baked Alyeska" that is made with: milk, dark and white chocolate mousse, brownie, liquid chocolate center and Italian meringue and it was AMAZING!!

The following morning we spent some time walking around the property enjoying some morning coffee and the scenery.

It was a great little getaway that we both really enjoyed!

Here are some pictures:

(Alyeska Resort Hotel)

(Sherri relaxing in a chair and enjoying the view)

(The view from our room. You can see the tram going up the mountain. At the top of the mountain there is a 5 Diamond restaurant that is one of the best in the state along with a museum, a cafeteria and some great views!!)

Memorial Day Camping

On Memorial Day weekend we went camping for 2 nights at Bertha Creek Campground about an hour and a half outside of Anchorage. It is a campground we have been to 3 times now and we really enjoy it because it is a quick, easy drive and it is in an amazing setting! The first night we camped by ourselves, but the second night 2 other couples joined us and we had a great time!

Sherri has never been a big fan of camping because she says that she can't get comfortable and its cold at night, and camping is one of my favorite activities so over the past couple of years we have outfitted ourselves with great quality camping gear and for the first time, Sherri said that she was comfortable and was only cold at the beginning of the night, once in our bags and blankets she warmed up! So apparently the hundreds of dollars spent at REI have been worth it!

The campground is at about 2,000 feet elevation in one of the snowiest areas of Alaska so at night the temp got into the upper 30's and during the day was mid 60's. During the days we had a mix of clouds and sun and at night it rained on us, but fortunately none of our stuff got wet.

Here are some pictures from Memorial Day Weekend Camping!

(Bertha Creek, where the campground is)

(A waterfall we stopped at on the drive to the campground)

(Sherri and I at Quartz Creek / Kenai Lake)

(Our campsite. Quite the view)

(The whole crew, The Harts, Grenns and Us)

When did we start missing the point?

I don't blog too often on religion but I think this is a post that everyone, regardless of religious origin can relate to.

I am a Christian...I often cringe when I say that, not because that word relates me with Jesus, but because it relates me with other Christians. I love Jesus, I believe that His teachings and messages are revolutionary and life changing. Yet I can't help but wonder what has happened to Christianity? Why is it that when you read of Jesus in the bible and then you look at the church today they are almost unrecognizable? This is a generalization of course, I know many people who live lives that are amazing examples of the love and grace that Jesus showed people. However, I am sad to say, they are in the minority.

In High School I was a big fan of the grunge / rock band Nirvana. Their music sang my pain and the pain of a generation. When their lead singer, Kurt Cobain, committed suicide it was big news. However, he had a quote that has always stayed with me.

"I am tired of hearing about christianity, just once I wish I could have seen it"

Wow. Here is a guy who, at the time, was the most famous rock star in the world. A guy who's concerts drew thousands upon thousands of people, yet in his most vulnerable moments he expresses, what I believe to be, the sentiment of most people.

The issue isn't that people haven't heard about christianity, it's that they haven't seen it. How sad.

How sad that what people too often see about christianity is picketers outside of abortion clinics, the protesting of gay people, people trying to push through "christian" legislation, people condemning anyone who lives a life not up to "our" standards, people looking down on unwed teenage mothers and the list could go on and on and on.

Missions trips, church work days, volunteer projects and other activities are good, but they are not nearly enough. These type of activities should be what defines us, not what we do monthly or once in a while.

I often think that if Jesus was here today a church is the one place He would not be found, rather he would be with the people that we protest and picket.

Jesus was a rebel. His words and actions offended the religious people of his day. He was harsh to the religious and loving to the un-churched. He spoke out against pastors who spoke empty words and loved the "sinners" who flocked to Him. I think we forget this about Jesus. We have turned him into something He is not. If we are religious, we need to be on guard that we do not become like the religious that Jesus spoke out against.

How did this happen? How is it that Jesus said the most important thing is to Love God and Love Others, yet we show so little love to the "others" that Jesus talks about? Christians are very good at loving and supporting other christians, it the the rest of the people that we struggle with. How many gay people would say that they feel loved by christians? How many ACLU members would say that they feel loved by christians? How many single mothers struggling to make ends meet would say that they feel loved by christians? How many muslims would say that they feel loved by christians?

In 1874 Henry Drummond wrote the following statement in his book "The Greatest Thing in the World"

"For the withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It means that He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him to be seized with the spell of His compassion for the world."

My hope is this: I hope that the christian church stops following christianity and starts following Jesus, because I believe that those two things are vastly different. I hope that we show people Jesus more than we tell them about Him. The Bible says that it is the Kindness of God that draws people to Him. Let us reflect that same kindness. Let us love the un-lovable as Jesus did. Let us stop trying to legislate people to change. Let us stop being so damn religious. Let us stop creating lists of "can do and can't do". Let us stop being legalistic.

The message of Jesus is freedom, it gives hope to the hopeless and grace to those who need it, let our lives be no different.

This is the journey that Sherri and I are on. This is what we are trying to become, more Jesus and less Christian.

_____________________________________________

If this is a topic that interests you I would recommend the following resources:

"They Like Jesus but Not the Church" - author: Dan Kimball
"The Jesus of Suburbia" - author: Mike Erre (this could be the best book I have ever read)
"Jesus Wants to Save Christians" - author: Rob Bell (hands down my favorite Rob Bell book)
"Blue Like Jazz" - author: Donald Miller

Also, please feel free to post comments on this topic. Do you agree? do you disagree? Am I a heretic? Lets discuss...lovingly.

Weekend Recap

This was a GREAT weekend full of EVEN MORE sunshine!

On Friday night we went and saw Angels & Demons, we are both big Dan Brown fans so we have been looking forward to the movie for a long time. The move was really good but did stray from the book quite a bit. After the movie we went downtown to Subzero Micro Lounge for dinner and a few drinks with friends.

On Saturday we went to some garage sales, bought 3 hanging flower baskets for the house, went to church and then got together with about 15 friends for a BBQ at Jason and Jana's house! The BBQ was SO much fun! We had a ton of food (steaks, pork chops, kabobs, burgers and moose steaks) and played ladderjacks (one of our favorite summer games) and we ended up staying at Jason and Jana's till about 2:30am talking with friends.

On Sunday we slept in and then drove to Girdwood for lunch and then continued on to the Portage Valley for an afternoon hike. We ended up hiking the "Trail of Blue Ice" which is a hiking trail that goes along a creek at the base of mountains that are covered in glaciers. It was awesome to get outside and get a nice hike in on such a great day! We even crossed the river and found a great secluded sand bar where we had amazing views in such a peaceful setting! Once we got back home after the hike we planted some Alaskan Wildflower seeds around our house so hopefully we will have a great mix of wildflowers in a few weeks!!

Our streak of AMAZING weather is supposed to continue so I am sure we will be outside as much as possible this coming week.

Here are a few pictures from our hike today.

The creek we hiked next to. Yes, it was VERY cold.

The mountains from our trip

Us on the hike

10pm Sky

Here are a couple of photos showing the sky outside at 10PM with the sun still shining!
And we are still over a month away from the longest days of the year!


View off of our upstairs balcony looking east


View off of our upstairs balcony looking south over Campbell Lake

Sunshine, Flowers and Picnics

So our streak of amazing weather continues and we took full advantage of it today! We had a picnic at a park near a fountain, laid in the sun for about an hour and then went and got some flowers to plant outside. We planted Calla Lilies, Shasta Daisies and Geraniums.

Our high temps have been in the mid to upper 60's. Today's high has been 68, and we have had a few days in the low 70's, which for me is about perfect! The daylight is getting longer with 17 hours and 15 minutes of daylight today!!

Wahoo!

The view from the deck today.


Calla Lilies that we planted today! These were the flowers we had at our wedding!


Our first picnic lunch of the year! Sliced french bread, swiss cheese, lettuce, deli mustard, Sherri had sun dried tomato & herb turkey breast and I had turkey ham.


The fountain at the park where we had our picnic.